The present invention relates to a method of collating images and an apparatus for collating images for collating an image for collation that has been taken in as digital data with an image for reference that has been stored as digital data.
When a fingerprint for instance is collated as a case of comparing an image for collation with an image for reference, the image of a fingerprint for collation taken in from a finger and an image of a fingerprint for reference are collated with each other by extracting features from respective images and paying attention to that portion. As the features, a branch point of a line on an image for instance is extracted. In such conventional collation of images, an image of a fingerprint for collation and an image of a fingerprint for reference are collated with each other based on light and shade of an image, the number of black and white lines of an image, angular information of the line and so forth.
In such a conventional collating system, however, since it is required to extract features of the image for collation and the image for reference, to count the number of black and white lines, to obtain angular information at the black and white portions of the image or to calculate light and shade of an image, complicated calculation processing is required. Further, there are such drawbacks that the processing takes time, the processing apparatus becomes large in scale, and a high speed central processing unit also becomes necessary.